Cranbrook's Fine Design for the End of the World

Discursive design is a broad category that encompasses many 'species.' While speculative design and design fiction have gained recent popularity, we should not forget that there are other design approaches that primarily aim to contribute intellectually through designed objects—voice is the focus rather than utility for the marketplace.

With discursive design's roots in Italian radical design of the 1960s, we should remember that Memphis had an internal focus—they were using design to speak to other designers and to challenge their status quo. To an extent, it is with this same internal focus and using a Memphis-esque medium of higher-end, low-production furniture and furnishings that Cranbrook students recently "spoke" to the design community during New York's Design Week.

The conversation which led to the exhibition evolved over the course of two semesters in Cranbrook's 3D Design graduate program, and was led by Scott Klinker, designer-in-residence and head of the 3D program. Students were encouraged to critically discuss the state of design in relation to our current global context, and built the exhibit around some meta-questions about the current state of design:_ Will design somehow save the planet? _ What does design mean in the era of climate change?_ Will climate change deliver the 'end of the world'?_ With the pressing need to rethink our culture of production and consumption, can industrialized society willingly change?_ Can design still improve the world?_ Do we just look away and keep making shiny, happy objects while the house is burning down?_ How do we feel about growing up in an age of environmental uncertainty?_ Will it (environmental uncertainty) lead to tragedy?_ Should we raise children in this kind of world?

Cranbrook 3D designers from the exhibition with their workPhoto Credits: Charlie Schuck

Though it should be noted, "Of course we are not 'for' the end of the world… Instead we hope to point to the potential tragedy we face. It's not about saying we've got the solution; instead the show portrays what it feels like to face these conditions as creative young people who want to improve the world. The work can be read as a poem, a prediction, a protest or a prayer for our collective future."

Mapped Vessels by Raveena Bhalara : These vessels are abstractions of the globe's continents and hold various grains that feed the world. This is a reminder that we are slowly and unapologetically depleting the earth of its resources. As the climate changes and agriculture begins to fail, how much will be left? Photo Credits:Charlie Schuck

On the intention of the work and exhibit:

"Prototypes can circulate as ideas on the internet while never being intended for production. This exhibit, for example, is intended to provoke conversation, not sell stuff."

Global Population: Year 0 / 1986 / 2050 by Vineta Chugh : Will human population growth lead to environmental collapse? The forms of this lamp are generated by actual data depicting past and projected figures for human population. Numeric data were translated into architectural forms that show relative relationships over time. The light of the globe becomes dimmed with the weight of all these passengers. Photo Credits: Charlie Schuck

About the discipline of ID:

"Historically, Industrial Design has served industry, and therefore has reasons to be complicit with certain lies we tell ourselves about 'progress.' Fine Design doesn't have these constraints. Fine Design can look more objectively and critically at design culture to ask important questions. In fact, it may be Fine Design's duty to ask those questions that Industrial Design can't or won't."

Knot Rug by Sophie Yan : This piece subverts the traditional notion of Fine Design by transforming a waste material (rubber bicycle inner tubes) into a precious object through a meticulous craft process and countless hours of human labor. In a world where the human population is growing at an alarming rate while machines are steadily replacing human labor, what is the value of the human hand? What is the value of 'waste' material? Photo Credits: Charlie Schuck

About the formal quality of the work:

"The formal responses to this subject were varied. Some designers responded with 'mythic' images of mankind, while others responded with forms derived from data. Formal themes of 'excess' and 'disintegration' were prevalent and the overall collection has a somber mood."

Growth by Robin Chen : What is natural? What is artificial? Will these connections be healing or toxic? These side tables serve as a reminder of these questions. Photo Credits: Charlie Schuck

About intention:

"All designers hope to improve the world in some way, whether it's through new functions, forms, processes, aesthetics, etc. Design is a positive force! We hope to make the world more 'human.' ... Designers, like other kinds of citizens, can ask such questions, but it takes collective will and leadership to give healthy answers. Designers have offered many visions of a more sustainable society, but very few ideas have overcome the political status quo so far. "

Bruce and Stephanie Tharp lead a husband-and-wife design studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan where they also are professors at the University of Michigan's Stamps School of Art & Design. Their studio has licensed and commissioned products and projects for companies like Ligne Roset, Moet-Hennessy, The Art Institute of Chicago, Crate&Barrel, Kikkerland, and Design Ideas. Educated in mechanical engineering, sociocultural anthropology, and industrial design, their practice and teaching crosses disciplinary boundaries of design, business, engineering, and healthcare, as well as the four fields of design: commercial, responsible, experimental, and discursive design. They are currently finishing a book project on discursive design.

9 Comments

Sadly, that's a collection of both ugly and nonfunctional overly designed objects that will have exactly zero effect on the oh-so-terrible-future in which these spoiled "designers" sans talent will have no room to ride their hobbyhorses.

It seems you misunderstand the "discursive" portion of "discursive design." The goal is not function or mass production. The goal, rather is to foster a discussion about material/object culture. The objects themselves may not have a direct effect, but I would argue that the world will not be saved by direct effects -- rather it will be saved via constructive dialogues and societal change.

I agree, good design is not always about our shinny commercial good with sexy appearance. When we look back the timeline of many big designers' work, we'll find there are always some 'ugly', 'confusing' or 'nonfunctional' piece. Like you said, those kind of study are unlikely to put directly effect on the current design trend nor make any sales, but they are important process for young designers to explore their own design philosophy.

As an industrial designer, I often look at these articles and wonder why someone would bother putting this sort of thing on a design website. I think it's more suited to juxtapoz or cool hunting, and would be classified under the 'art-design' heading like much of the Campana Bro's works. It is interesting as a thought exercise, but what value do these objects bring? Most of them look like something that wouldn't be out of place in contemporary art museums around the world. Will these objects be useful? Will they end up in landfill?

If the designers can use what they have learned from this to discover solutions to the problems they are addressing with these works, then maybe "design" will eventuate rather than contemporary art or abstract discussion.

Aaron, I think the short answer is that there are different definitions and boundaries of design. The longer answer follows...

It seems like you are raising a questions from the perspective that design is limited to the same type of practices from the early 20th century. Many feel that the field has expanded to include other intentions beyond profit-making on functional, mass-produced work. (One could easily say that much of the Campana Brothers' work is just that though--so perhaps you are making some other distinctions.)

We feel that product design should be afforded the same ability to participate intellectually as other design disciplines. A graphic designer can design a better voting ballot, and no one challenges her when she then also design a political poster--one is utilitarian and the other is discursive. Are political posters beyond the realm of what graphic design is?

It would be interesting to hear you describe the traits of something that you feel falls into your design camps, and of others that do not. I think that you might find that it is a difficult exercise to make clean distinctions. (I know because I spent months trying, and which is why we wrote The Four Fields of Design article for core77 a while back.

It might be worth reading that article, even if only as a basis for some common language or a starting point from which to deviate.

Fundamentally we have a more pluralistic view of design as an expanding field. Others of course are also just as free to have a more traditional and narrower view. Such questions of disciplinary bound are not unique to design and they will likely forever be asked of any field that people care about and seemingly matters. We encourage dialogue and discourse about this as a way of making better sense for yourself and your interlocutors, especially as there is no right answer. As the linguist Michael Silverstein once told me (and the 25 other budding anthropologists in the room), "Of course I'm wrong. We're all wrong. But are you wrong and interesting? Are you wrong and useful?"

Working in a product design environment, it really bothers me sometimes how we are so restricted to design for 'quick' problem solving (that meets clients needs), but unfortunately we all need to survive.